The Special Education Data Portraits present information about students receiving special education services in Michigan school districts. The data elements reported here include those submitted to the U.S. Department of Education each February as part of the federally-required annual special education child counts.
- The Disability report shows, by type of disability, the number of students receiving special education services.
- The Age Range report shows the number and age ranges of students receiving special education services.
- The Educational Setting and Demographics report shows where students receive special education services, as well as gender, race/ethnicity, disability type, and grade level breakdowns.
To receive special education services and be included in this report, the student must have one of thirteen impairment types and have an IEP or similar service plan. The Michigan Administrative Rules for Special Education contains detailed definitions of each disability type.
The data are used for monitoring the programs and activities required under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. IDEA provides the following protections for children and their families:
- Students with disabilities are entitled to a free and appropriate public education.
- Schools are required to find students with disabilities and refer those students for service eligibility.
- Students must be evaluated and meet eligibility in Michigan to receive special education programs and services.
- If a student is identified as having a disability, appropriate services for the disability must be provided by the state.
- Special education and the specific services are tailored to meet the unique needs of students with disabilities.
- Students with disabilities are required to have an individualized education plan.
- Students with disabilities should receive instruction in the least restrictive environment along with nondisabled peers.
- The rights of the students and their parents are to be protected by the law, under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Students are entitled to due process rights of notice and consent.
Although IDEA covers birth through age 21, Michigan is a birth to age 26 state, and those counts are reflected here. More about federal and state special education laws and policies can be found on the Michigan Department of Education website.
The report is updated in late spring. See the Recently Posted Reports page for when the report was last updated. See more detail on the About the Data section.
Historical Changes
- Beginning with the 2018-19 school year, total student counts include all continuing students less than 26 years old as of September 1 of the school year. Prior to this year, the total student counts included continuing students in grades K-12 that are not nonpublic or homeschooled.
- Summary data from earlier years can be found at the USED Individuals with Disabilities Act Data Accountability Center website.
Use the Location and Report Settings to review and select the location and school year. Data can also be filtered by disability type (Disability Report) and report and student group category (Educational Setting and Demographics).
Data view options include:
- Snapshot (a graph and table of the selected data)
- Trend (a graph and table showing changes over time)
See the MI School Data Quick Start Guide for the basics of navigating the site and customizing a report.
Location Options
Locations Setting options: Statewide, ISD and district
Logged-in Users
Logged-in users can see unsuppressed data for the entities for which they have been specifically authorized.
CEPI collected the data used to compile this report using the Michigan Student Data System. For more information on the MSDS application and reporting rules, please see the MSDS Collection Details Manual on the CEPI website.
The reports include special education students from birth to age 26, as served under Michigan law. CEPI counts the number of children receiving special education under an Individualized Education Program or Individualized Family Service Plan, including home schooled and nonpublic students who receive special education through a public school. This is an unduplicated count, meaning a child is counted once and only once, even if attending more than one facility or having multiple disabilities.
The data are collected as of the first Wednesday in October; the child’s age is as of the data collection date.
Details about how full-time equivalency is determined when a child receives education through more than one district can be found in the resources section of CEPI’s Michigan Student Data System web page.
If you have questions not addressed here or in the linked resources, please contact CEPI customer support at cepi@michigan.gov.
Disclosure Avoidance
To protect the privacy of individual students, CEPI applies data suppression rules to sensitive data when report settings would yield fewer than 10 students in a given group. Complementary groups may also be suppressed. In some cases, values less than 10 may be shown when there is no risk of identifying individual students. Secure users can log in to view unsuppressed data for their authorized location. Please see How CEPI Protects Education Data for more information.
Report Labels
See the glossary for additional terms and acronyms used on MI School Data.
Data Calculations
- In the State count table, the Special Education percent is calculated by dividing the Special Education Count by the count for the State, ISD and LEA.
- Percentages by disability categories are calculated by dividing the disability category count by the total special education count.
